Faithless
by cassowary
Summary: Or, the Fall of Brom the Storyteller. Morzan's memories haunt everybody who has known him, and he will always, always have his revenge.
1. Possession

Author's Note: Oh, dear, I really can't stop myself, can I? Honestly, I'd rather take on the Mongol Hordes unarmed than read the whole Inheritance Cycle again (at least fighting Ghenghis Khan would be exciting), but here I go again, when I said I wouldn't. I'm also branching into some material that isn't quite as squeaky-clean and family-friendly as I'd prefer, so please, bear with me...I didn't want to sound too forced or melodramatic. I'd love to hear your opinions, though!

I. Possession

All Selena can think about is the pain that she forces from her body as she fights to expel the parasite that has been growing inside her for months. No magic can dull this agony, and the man responsible for all of this holds their crushing hands together and whispers.

As the torturous moments go on, her screams subside, the pain even subsides; the poison has been extracted and lies bloody on the silken sheets. Morzan catches her wrist in his huge, elegant hand, painfully tight, and the new mother has to drop the silver dagger that she had just pulled from under the pillow.

The creature is almost small enough to fit in its father's hand—held out of harm's way, wet and bloodstained, naked and silent. That boy has tiny perfect hands and feet; a shock of Morzan's dark hair on his head.

Even though their child does not cry (aren't newborn babies _supposed_ to cry?), Selena falls back into the crimson velvet cushions, restrained. Defeated.

Morzan does not look at her.

He takes the child in both his own hands. Nine of his fingers are whole, one is truncated. His hands are hard, callused with the grip of his sword; silver-scarred with the mark of the Riders. But Selena knows how tender those hands could be. Morzan is also strong enough to tear the boy apart, she knows, easily as cooked lamb.

The child's eyes open for the first time.

Three black eyes, one blue, look back and forth. Selena's own brown eyes are drawn to her lover's tender smile.

And she remembers the flowers—her favorite irises—that she had ordered the gardener to plant for good luck. Neal was a fool, but he had a great gift for the growth of living things.

Morzan is still smiling as he kisses his son's little forehead.

"Murtagh," he croons, and shivers run down the young mother's aching spine at the sound of his deep voice, "you are beautiful, you look just like me, my son."

It is obvious the baby does not understand, but Morzan was the one who made him, delivered him, saved him. The way his hands stroke the flawless new skin makes Selena sick and slightly jealous.

"You are _mine_."

The Red Rider sets his heir oh-so-gently down on the stone floor next to the bed. The marble is cold, but Selena twists slightly to see the not-yet-distinguished little snow-white face, dead black eyes, her own drying blood the only thing yet covering Morzan's newest creation (illusion?). Morzan himself is a great shadow over her, and any strength she mustered melts away under that soft smile. The Rider's left eye is the color of ice, she thinks, and his voice rumbles into her sternum and throat; she knows he is right.

"And you," he whispers, those hands already pushing her shoulders down, "_you_ are also mine."

"_Please,_" she whispers back, throaty and trembling. Selena wants and does not want; she is too tired, but maybe if she lost herself, gave herself up again, maybe then there would not be that _thing_ lying neglected on the floor beside them. She wants Morzan as much as she wants to be left alone; she does not want his lips claiming hers as she does not want a slender black-eyed boy named Murtagh taking her place: in Morzan's service, in Morzan's shining silver armor, in Morzan's bed.

Selena is tired, but she has had no choice ever since she left Carvahall with that handsome, charming man with mismatched eyes and a decidedly macabre taste in humor.

She _will_, however, order Neal to tear out the irises tomorrow and plant briars in their stead.


	2. Diamonds

Author's Note: This one dragged on. Hopefully, it's believable. I think I like these characters because they afford one so much "artistic freedom," and it's fun to write people so dysfunctional.

Any views and opinions expressed in the following do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the cassowary.

Thank you, Restrained. Freedom for your honest critique of the last chapter.

Still have not fought Genghis Khan, nor have I read any books recently with dragons on the front cover.

II. Diamonds (Amid the Ruin of It All)

"I don't care what you do," he told her.

"Your lips are sealed, and you can't escape me," he told her.

"You've already outlasted your usefulness," he told her.

"He's my son, too," she told him, fiercely, bold and seeking leverage. Morzan only laughed.

"He's _my_ son; he looks like me; I delivered him; I named him. If you had your way, you would have killed him on sight."

The baby, Murtagh, sleeps soundly in his father's arms as the Red Rider strokes his feathery black hair. Morzan smiles, but with his mismatched eyes on Selena, the expression is more like that of a wolf eying his prey. Selena wants to run away, free of her lover and the loathsome creature that just so recently ripped its way out of her womb.

"You should not have stopped me," she says courageously, voice trembling. Men fear the Black Hand, but she is that much more afraid of the Red Rider of the Forsworn. Naturally, his expression did not even so much as budge.

"I forbid you to speak that way about my heir," he tells her coolly. "Obviously, you are useless as a mother, as well, but rest assured that you will retain your position as my Black Hand until Murtagh grows up. I will give you your next assignment at dawn tomorrow."

When he turns and walks calmly back into the hall, Selena thinks of sticking a knife in his back.

_Just try it, Selena_, a voice taunts in her head, and she is not sure whether the voice is really Morzan or just her imagination.

She does not try it. She plods back from the doorway and slumps down on her bed. She cries with a blotchy red face and tears soaking her loosened brown hair, snot running down her nose and chin. It is ugly, and she has never felt more useless, just like Morzan said.

Neal the Gardener lives in the servants' quarters and shares a small, dingy room with a janitor. The janitor is passed out drunk, now, and snores, although Neal knows his roommate is sleeping through his shift and bound to catch hell in the morning. Neal, despite his outward appearance, is not stupid. He has never missed his duty yet.

It is almost two hours after midnight, and he sits up on his cot, trying to empty his mind and remember things that he hasn't thought about for a while.

There is a reason he forgets—to remain a simple gardener, and to avoid the pain of that dark, gaping wound in his soul. It is only in the silence of the night that he remembers these things, and simmers with rage.

_Just wait, and I swear you will have your revenge_.

He does not sleep well, and he has aged considerably in the past few decades, whether with nature or stress. But these are his only moments he has anymore, to be something that Neal the Gardener never even _dreamed_ of. Gardeners work during the day.

A knock on the flimsy wooden door makes the sleeping janitor grunt, and the wounded, angry man on the other cot jumps and quickly hides everything that was not specifically Neal, like haphazardly shoving dirt under a rug.

Another knock.

"Wha' is it?" the man that is now Neal slurs, pretending that he was awoken by the noise. He lumbers, purposefully clumsy, over those few steps to the door, jerking it open with a vague frown.

"There be a fire or summat?"

"Naw," the boy, a scraggly stable boy of about fourteen named Lucas says derisively. The other servants even look down on the senile gardener, that hidden side of Neal notes.

"Th' Lady Selena's been callin' after you, is all. Dunno why...Them rich folks 'n' all their silly—"

"Oh, it's you, Lycurgus. Wha' was 't you jest said, eh?" Neal squints hard at the boy, cupping a hand to his ear, and Lucas heaves an audible sigh.

"Th'-Lady-Selena-wants-you-ta-do-summat-so-you-better-get-yer-self-up-ta-th'-gardens-if-ya-value-yer-life-Neal," he says, deliberately loudly, slowly, and obnoxiously, hands on his hips.

"Eh?" Neal asks again, slumping to the side. "Why'd she want that? Don' they know what time 'tis, eh?"

Lucas only shrugs, careless and irritated.

"I don't know nothin' about it, but you better get yerself down there now. It ain't my problem, now is 't?"

With that, the stable boy leaves. The part of Neal that is not Neal is bristling—the idiocy of that child!

But Neal is a harmless, slow-minded gardener. He will just go to the gardens, _now_, like a good servant, just like Lucas said. So not-Neal hides a knife in Neal's tunic, _just in case_, he assures the simple man, and Neal, rubbing his eyes and yawning because he had just been woken up, takes up his toolbox and weaves his way slowly from the servants' quarters, 'round the archway, to the garden in the courtyard.

The mountains loom black around the white stone of the high castle walls; the sky is crammed with starts above; the moon is full and casts cold light on the skeletal silence of this fortress.

Neal shivers, nervous among the clawed shadows that stalk him.

He is a simple man, and the nights here, cradled in the mountains, are dark magic enough.

His garden, the one he made himself for the Lord and Lady, it is a forest filled with wolves and bears and other vicious creatures to tear him apart at night. He is glad that not-Neal gave him a weapon.

Just in case.

The Lady Selena herself is standing in the center of the garden, half-bathed in moonlight that filters in stained-glass patterns through the carved roof of an airy gazebo.

Neal has never met her in person before.

Not-Neal is clawing to get out as the gardener bows to the ground. Not-Neal has thought about the Lady, the consort of that _traitor_, and she _must_ be brought down. Because the Traitor needs to be killed slowly, first his Black Hand, then that monster dragon of his. Not-Neal thinks about cutting the Traitor's belly open and tearing out his blue eye and feeding it to him; he thinks about cutting off his hands and feet and making him crawl through burning coals; he thinks about all sorts of horrible deaths for the one who made him into Neal the Gardener, in the first place.

But Neal is just a gardener.

So he bows clumsily and waits for the Lady to tell him to rise. She does not, but his face belongs in the dirt.

"_Oh_! I am so very sorry, Neal," she finally says in a high, fluttery, false voice. Neal is not used to anybody apologising to him, so he still bows, even lower now.

"I was dreadfully preoccupied. _Do_ stand up."

The silver-threaded hem of her pale rose-coloured dress even flutters when she speaks, so expressively.

_She is false, utterly false!_ Not-Neal proclaims, angry and triumphant.

"M'lady," Neal says stupidly, frozen in the same position, hand clenched over his heart. The dagger is hidden there.

"Oh dear, Neal, is something the matter?" that airy voice asks, over-curious. For all she tries, she sounds nothing like a noble. There is still too much Earth in that voice, not-Neal analyzes.

She tries and tries, and fails and fails. That is the Black Hand of Morzan. That is her weakness.

"Naw, nothin's th' matter, m'lady," wheezes Neal, stalling for time.

"Are you well?"

At this, not-Neal's nerves are steeled. He knows he is a poor actor in the face of adrenaline, but he will kill her, or that awful, pretentious _bitch_ will die. Nobody expected _this_ from Neal the Gardener. He is clutching the knife at his chest when their eyes meet for the first time.

Neal the Gardener was a scruffy middle-aged man with a scrub of gray-and-white hair and sun-creased brown skin. Selena had seen him bent over flowers and shrubs, humming off-key to himself. Neal the Gardener wore patched clothes and his blue eyes were clouded over and not focused.

The man who claims to be Neal the Gardener, his blue eyes and lined face are like a hunting eagle.

It takes Selena's breath away.

The Black Hand is primarily a magician, not a warrior. She is not ready for the gardener to hold a knife to her throat, backed against a pillar. The man with his lined face and rat's-nest hair and bedraggled appearance caught her by surprise, and she wonders how she did not notice anything dangerous about him earlier. She begins to open her mouth, pulls her own knife from her bodice, but he has forcibly slammed into her conscious, a savage battering-ram, a man with absolutely nothing to lose. She cannot do magic to save herself, she can barely hold this man, the not-gardener at bay with her mind, she cannot fight him off.

The moon and his wild eagle eyes are the last things she will see.

Not-Neal feels no pity for the Black Hand, the evil whore who aids the Traitor. She is all a lie, a woman little more than a girl, a rough-handed farm-girl-turned-assassin in a noblewoman's silvery splendor and gown; her soft brown curls woven with a lustrous net of pearls. Her face is fading-tanned by the sun, like his own, but this will not save her, nor will her delicate rose-petal lips trying so desperately to form magic words—she can only fail, just like he can only fail—no, in the end what saves her life are her eyes.

Because they are painted all about like a rich woman, and they are deceptively soft brown doe-eyes, but her makeup is smeared and beneath it all her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, with ugly paint-stripes down her cheeks. The corners of her nose are crusty, and though she would have been considered beautiful before, the Lady Selena, Black Hand of Morzan, looks like a weak, hopeless fool. It is clear she has been crying well before she met not-Neal, and her mess is more genuine than anything she could have told him.

_I am not Morzan_, he spits, and Selena hears. Morzan would have killed her.

Her face hardens in the face of this frightening man, reaches once more for her knife as his onslaught ceases, because doubtless Morzan would want him dead. But Selena feels angry and hopeless and spiteful, and so she decides to rebel, just as she rebelled in Carvahall by running away with the handsome stranger with mismatched eyes. A fake tear runs down her cheek, and she relaxes again, pressed gently against the rough gardener. He relaxes too, instinctively, but his eyes pierce right through.

"I could kill you right now," Selena chokes on her threat. She does not want to kill this man, but she is sick of being afraid and weak.

"I should have killed you already," he grunts, but it seems he does not want to kill her any more, either. He is not nearly as good at acting as she is.

He is not Neal the Gardener.

"But you didn't," she whispers.

"No," he says, with barely repressed fury in his voice.

"I would never sink to the level of that..._scum_."

It is clear to whom that comment refers.

"I hate him," she says in the Ancient Language.

"He everything away and left me with _nothing_. No home, no family, not even a will of my own. I am just a _tool_ to him; killing his enemies; bearing his foul children—"

The stranger stands above her, crowned in stars, his face full of pity and disgust and anger.

"He took away _her_," he bites out, and though Selena does not know who he means, but the pain and rage and loss in his voice makes Selena feel a kind of a thrill, a sudden glow of kinship, despite her layers of half-lies and masks like armor and pretty dresses and everything else she wore.

"I won't tell him," she promises, again in the Ancient Language. The stranger understands.

"You are not Neal the Gardener, are you?"

There is a long moment where the two lock gazes and clash wills in the piecemeal moon-shadows under the gazebo.

"No," he finally answers.

"Then, who are you?"

"Brom."

There is no recognition in her eyes as he tells her of Morzan's most bitter enemy. Brom feels a flash of fury that the Traitor did not even see fit to mention him.

"Are you here to kill...Morzan?" She asks, dark eyes wide with curiosity and no small amount of fear.

"Yes," he tells her. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes," she confesses, without hesitation. Selena is brave in a different way, a way that makes Brom want almost to respect her, the lover of his mortal enemy, the killer of...

And she is all soft and silver in the moonlight, in the courtyard of a haunted castle. Selena is human and lost in the middle of a nightmare filled with black-haired demons that mock her and violate her.

Brom, at least, understands this, and Selena feels a great release at the acknowledgement in his tired blue eyes.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" she asks him, breathless, knowing and hating this cliché. She can tell that this man, Brom, wants her, like every other man. But Brom is the first that spared her in her weakness, and she feels an alien hope blossoming somewhere in her shattered heart.

"I don't believe in anything much, anymore," the old man answers harshly.

"Not since I lost _her_."

Selena wants to ask who "she" was, but Brom with his eagle-eyes might change his mind. Selena knows her limitations. So she keeps up a meaningless conversation, the first she has had in quite a while where she can be Selena, whoever the hell that is, now.

"I _don't_," she announces. "I used to, but then _he_ swept me away to his castle and now I'm in Hell."

He does not answer. Nobody would have known what that Traitor really became. His Black Hand was just another fool fallen into his trap. She has not suffered nearly as much as he has for Morzan's treachery, though. He watches as she steps closer, in her radiant dress and ugly smeared makeup, and she smells like expensive fragrances, white roses and jasmine; her breath is warm, and it strikes Brom that he has never been this physically close to another living thing since _she_ was brutally murdered—the hands on his forearms raise goosebumps at their touch.

"Change my mind," she whispers.

They kiss in the moonlight, pearl and silver and diamond in a graveyard of brambles and stone. They are hungry and desperate and lost, clinging to each other like shipwrecked sailors set adrift.

"Dear me," Selena gasps when they break apart, the Consort and Noblewoman once more, even through her streaked face paint, "dear me, Neal."

She fans her blushing face with one (rough) hand so daintily, so not-Neal takes the cue and slumps over once more, grinning idiotically.

"And wha' was that job you wanted me ta do, m'lady?" he asks.

Selena giggles, but her eyes somehow remain sad.

"I wanted you to tear out those irises you planted a week ago, and plant brambles there."

Rings glint on her fingers as she motions carelessly over to the flowers in question.

"But I changed my mind. Neal, I think, I think I want..."

The old man, Neal the Gardener, raises his head again, eyes alight with a kind of simple hope. He is barely in-character, but only Selena sees this.

"Wha' about white roses t' suit m'lady?"

He asks too eagerly, almost, but he is only a simple man. Selena thinks his proposition over, carefully. She finally smiles, because she, too sees the perfect compromise in white roses. It is a beautiful kind of poetry, she thinks.

"Yes, Neal. White roses would be _lovely_. I would like them to be planted here by sunrise, if you please."

Her feet crunch on the white gravel path, everything is snow-white or blood-red in this evil castle, and she glimmers silver in the night, like the moon, like diamonds and pearls and everything precious left in the world, when she half-turns back to the staring gardener.

"And Neal,"

"Yes, m'lady?"

Like a diamond, Selena is radiant when she smiles.

"Good night."

"Good night, m'lady..."

A cynical part of not-Neal thinks that it is only too easy to be a slobbering fool, a _Neal_, in the presence of this woman. Reluctantly, he picks up his box of tools and crunches his way over to the doomed irises.

It will be difficult to sing up white roses for the Lady, especially with the utter pain of losing _her_ prodded every time he performs magic; the reason behind his weakened powers.

But for Selena, the young, pretentious, lost, foolish Black Hand of Morzan, he will do it.

Neal sleeps in the garden, on the gravel, a trowel clenched in his dirty hand. The harsh red morning sun in the mountains wakes him up early, as the servants stir. Quickly, he gathers up his scattered tools and makes for the servants' quarters again.

Maids stare and laugh openly at his slovenly appearance.

"You'd better get cleaned up b'fore the Master catches you, or you'll get whipped!" one washerwoman gives a loud stage whisper, but Neal just bobs his head pleasantly, hurrying along, part of the mundane once more.

Selena barely listens as Morzan gives her instructions as they walk together through the courtyard.

The morning dew is a multitude of fiery diamonds on large, perfect, smooth moon-white roses. She bends to breathe the rich scent of one, and her lover is a tall standing shadow behind her, watching coldly.

"_Roses_?" he snorts, "Women are such silly, fickle creatures."

And Selena looks up at him, meets his eyes, his deadly black-and-blue eyes in his mask-like face.

"_I_ like them better," she tells him innocently.

"Your things should already be packed," the Red Rider tells her. Although he is an artist in his own rite, he has little patience for the fancies and whims of others. Morzan is more of a thinker, a visionary, a puppeteer, and flowers in general are insignificant to him. He likes the color of red roses and red sunsets and rivers running red.

He loves the world bathed in red blood and fire, because civilizations as a whole become indolent and lazy and corrupt when not washed clean.

And Morzan hates to see the same happen to the woman he loves. He fell for her when her face and hair and clothes were all dyed with blood.

Selena says nothing, but she has changed, become stubborn in the wrong way, full of revolting childish dreams. It is for her own good that Morzan sends her out, to wash the world in that cleansing blood, and he kisses her lips gently when she mounts her black horse and rides from the castle gates.

He cares nothing for the white roses or the foolish gardener who planted them; nothing for the maddened cries of the _animal_ that used to be his red dragon as it rages from its rooftop cage, rages against the bonds that it no longer can understand, yet still hold it back.

Morzan spends that day in his study with his tiny son and a bottle of wine.


	3. A Great And Terrible Madness

Author's Note: Moar gloom and doom. Morzan is a _lot_ of fun! I hope this chapter is, well, reasonable. And, well, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Even if you yell at me and tell me I bastardized the great Shishio Makoto. Because I probably deserve that...hee hee hee.

This chapter was powered by "Mirage" by Armin Van Buuren. Good song, good album. I highly recommend it.

III. A Great And Terrible Madness

Sour in his mouth; burning in his throat. The red, the damnation, the sweetness, the death.

Morzan drank blood, not wine. Intoxicated himself on the very Elixir of Life that ran from the edge of his crimson blade. This, this was strength.

He was a man of _steel_.

A wielder of the deepest misery known to man. An immortal. A _god_.

Nothing, nothing could touch him. He was strong; he would live forever. Death was for the weak: for Vrael and Saphira and inevitable for his own nameless dragon—he did not miss that whispering in his mind; the snide, husky voice that would rasp, _you are only philosophical when you are drinking, Morzan_.

He did not need to laugh; he did not need a partner.

He was a man of steel.

And so with his sword unsheathed across his knees, he merely smiled to himself and tipped his silver cup back one more time.

The strong live.

_The weak die_.

"I don't love him," Selena told him, shining in the night, shining in his arms. Her suntanned face highlighted in silver, a precious, delicate, beautiful thing, and her skin was _so_ warm, so real.

"I didn't expect," she said with a hollow laugh, because her life has been wasted up until this point, "I never expected that I would fall for you. You just..._Brom—_"

The elder man brushed his rough knuckles against the woman's face, marveling in how soft her skin was, how wonderful and _alive—_he had never felt so alive as now, with the love of his life giggling and blushing like a young maid, and that sound healed all of their scars, it was perfect, it was...

"I know," he growled in his low, gruff voice, melting with tenderness. "I know. But here we are, and..."

A sudden mischievous grin lit Selena's features as she stepped in closer, chest-to-chest, hand-in-hand, burning and separated by rough cloth and fine silks.

"Morzan won't know," she whispered, sultry through those curving lips.

"All he does is drink, any more. He drinks himself to sleep at night. _He_," she spat, "will never notice. He doesn't notice, not ever."

"Are you _sure_?" Brom asked, but he already was backing her to the garden bench, shaded by a bush of his wild white roses that shone like miniature moons in the night under the great stars. Their feet crunched on the gravel, and the ex-Rider's head was a blur. His hate for Morzan was for Saphira, but also equally for Selena. If they were _caught_...

The Black Hand fell back on the bench, arms around her lover's broad shoulders, lusty and just a bit shy, not one bit the jaded temptress she pretended to be.

"He won't know," the real Selena said again, softly, hesitantly, as if she were convincing herself.

"But even if he does, I won't care."

As she lay back, a drop of Brom's sweat fell on her bare collarbone. He was too choked up to speak properly, but both burned up inside, under the moon and stars above.

Morzan relaxed into the embrace of the fire in his veins, ignited by alcohol. The poison, it purged him of his humanity, the tiny fears that haunted him when he was sober—gods, he was neurotic when he was sober, feeling a sting of jealousy towards his pathetic lov—no, his pathetic _whore_, the realization that Galbatorix, his old misguided friend, was trying to _use _him, a man dominated by pride; his dragon was broken and useless, his three-year-old son was growing up soft and afraid; everything seemed to go utterly, utterly _wrong_. He grew weary of tranquility.

Morzan knew he was a terrible drunk, but he was also merciless, heartless, unafraid. Were he drunk when Vroengard fell, Brom would have not survived.

Alcohol, it cleaned wounds and it cleaned Morzan's mind, the color of blood and the heat of deep flames.

And dancing in the burn, he hated it all.

"_I love you_," Brom said a thousand times, on his lips, in his mind. It had been _years_ since that simple phrase ever crossed his being. But now he said it, prayed it, pleaded it to the woman below him. She was beautiful and soft as the Moon, but she burned with cleansing fire inside, whirling and raging in her dark eyes, screamed out of her swollen lips. It was Death, it was oblivion, fire and rain. It was great and terrible and wonderful, madness incarnate: a river of molten dreams that swept them up and washed away their anger, bitterness, wounds, and dashed them to pieces on sharp rocks below. Selena's light hair fell all over the bench, disheveled and wet with sweat as she drowned with that ecstasy.

Brom knew because he was dying too.

"And...I love you."

A detached part of Morzan felt Selena's rebellion in the garden. He did not care. _He DID NOT CARE_. She had proven that she was weak. The only beauty and purity was in chaos, sweet chaos. Blood and fire, not dreams. Dreams were worthless. When had _he_ ever been free? Not taken away from his family in Dras-Leona, not ruled by the Elves and the corrupt, outmoded Dragon Riders, not even with Galbatorix. The most he could do was to be a hooked thorn in the side of the world in return.

But Morzan waited. He loved, hurt, and waited.

And he found a solution.

"Governess!" he called hoarsely. She was a hopeless, unattractive young thing named Ingrid, although Morzan never called her by name. Ingrid watched little Murtagh for minimal pay, her mind always on her own young children left behind in a small village; or otherwise well-bottled-up. Morzan supposed that he should have taken the time to hire a better governess, but this one, despite her faults, got the basic job done successfully—and Morzan did not want Murtagh to become attached.

The woman sleep-stumbled down the hall, passing through the ajar door most gracelessly as she rubbed downcast, dull eyes.

"Yes, my lord?" she slurred, and the Red Rider's mouth twisted in a thin smile. The governess had not been drinking tonight, but her clarity was even poorer than his. He brushed aside the fanciful trivia.

"Bring me my son."

At this, the hapless woman blinked up at him blearily, clearly confused by this simple order.

"But my lord, it is past his bedtime—"

With a careless flick of his hand, she was silenced.

"Governess," he told her gently, "I hired you as a servant to obey orders without question. I see my precious son rarely enough. Get him."

His words were soft, but the governess still did not meet his unnerving eyes, preferring to watch beautiful temptress Zar'roc as he turned her naked form over idly across his knees.

It took the governess a moment to react.

"Yes, my lord," she said automatically, and Morzan gifted her with a full smile, this time.

"Bring him, and then get out of my sight. Immediately."

He swigged from his bottle of fire-wine as he waited. Selena's cries of ecstasy filled his mind. He caressed the blade of Zar'roc, the only one he had left, in her stead.

It was a matter of minutes until the governess herded Murtagh into the room, closing the door heavily. Morzan's keen ears caught the sound of her footsteps rushing away—the woman was wisely fearful of her master's moods.

At three years old, Murtagh was small and thin for his age, almost deathly pale; a quiet, somewhat sickly child. Although, this might have been due to the trace amounts of various poisons spiked into his food. Morzan had ordered his food to be tainted so that he would build immunity to such substances later in life, but the poisons now had the boy frequently ill and listless, devoid of energy.

He also was not permitted to leave the castle.

So like a perfect vassal, the young child scuffed up to his father in soft slippers and an embroidered black smock, lowered his sad eyes and bowed his shaggy head of long unkempt raven hair, just as he had been taught.

"Lord father," he acknowledged softly in his flat, childish voice. Morzan's mouth twitched as his attention left Selena and even Zar'roc, and then he smiled once more, sitting up straighter. It was obvious that Murtagh repressed his flinch at the sudden movement. _Smart boy_.

"Murtagh," the father acknowledged in turn, giving the name a sort of obscene caress, "Have you been well?"

"Yes, Lord father."

It was just that, that flat, dull voice that spoke of repressed emotions and a blatant lie. Someday, if Morzan's will held through, there would be _no_ emotions. It irked him that the child's eyes remained downcast.

"Have you been taught your letters?" Morzan asked, breaking the long silence and making Murtagh start. The slight movement induced a small stab of irritation.

"Yes, sir."

"Then show me."

His tensions were mounting, and no matter how much he drank, he could not cleanse the murmurs in the back of his mind, the insecurities and doubts; Selena as she forsook him for another man; his dragon's nonsensical ravings and uncontrolled desires as it hurled itself against the bars of its cage. Murtagh did not leave immediately, but Morzan caught a small flash of anger in his dark eyes. The boy was stubborn, too stubborn; Morzan could not control a single fucking thing, not even his own flesh and blood; his copy and mirror-image.

"Yes, sir," and the child's voice now was tinged with resentment after all this time of neglect.

"Then go, get your books," Morzan snapped, patience wearing thin.

Anger of the weak, anger of the strong. This child could be difficult and rebellious, but it meant nothing if he was not strong. And Morzan? Was he strong? Was he stronger than his pale little copy? Would his feelings for his son be used against him? Was he in a snare? Was he trussed with love and promises and emotions? Was he a tool, a slave, something that would retire into indolence? _Washewashewashe_?

Murtagh watched as his face twitched, twisted out of control, flushed and sick with frustration; the father half-rose from his chair, Zar'roc and clenched fists, bared teeth. The boy did not understand much but that he should fear.

All thoughts of defying his father—or making him proud, even, flew from his head.

Murtagh ran.

"_Oh_, Brom—Brom—"

Tears ran and mingled down their faces, Selena's sunburnt lined bearded face; Brom's young face with the smeared kohl and rouge—fused together, crying, dying, burning, insane, _wild-free-merged-fierce-hungry-longing-amazement _in their intimate dance in the garden under the moon and—

—"If you are strong, you will live. If you are weak, you will die. Think of this as my gift to you, my son."

_You will be strong_.

Morzan drew back his right arm, the one that had Zar'roc cradled in his silver palm, the child could run but he could not hide, the child did not even expect—

—_Gods, I have failed—_

—Sobbing, panting, howling, sweating—

—The crimson mistress, beautiful Lady Zar'roc glittered and sang as she spun through the air—

—Completed in a fiery blast—

—The boy made a small choked sound of surprise as she caressed his back with her red love and bleeding force; he fell forward under her weight with his black smock ripped open; his very _body _ripped open.

He fell like a rose petal, staining the deep bright color of his own blood, a red rose that blossomed around his small form, spread even to his dark hair and his dead eyes stared even as she slipped out of him, sated and clattered on the blood-slicked marble next to him.

It was the most beautiful thing Morzan had ever seen—

—The secret lovers in the garden pulled apart, exhausted in each other's arms, glowing like the stars above in their souls.

" I love you," Brom said one more time, chest heaving, breath in short gasps. His rough knuckles were tender and slipped on Selena's wet cheek.

She only smiled.

Servants were worms. They came, trembling and groveling, to Morzan's quarters when he rang the bell. At least they were well-trained worms.

Those worms trembled even more at the sight on the marble floor.

Those pathetic _worms_.

There were three of them, his personal chamberlain, a healer, and Murtagh's now-fully-awake governess—well trained, indeed.

"My lord—" the wizened chamberlain began, but Morzan waved his hand and _literally_ silenced them all with his whispered command. The governess looked ill, the soft creature. Had they not all been his staff, the Red Rider would likely have killed them all for disgust.

"You," he growled to the chamberlain, purposefully menacing (like a cat plays with a mouse; only one party is actually "playing"), "clean and polish Zar'roc. Leave her on my desk."

The old man bowed hastily, shuffling and collecting the bloody sword as quickly as he could to do his duty. Briefly, Morzan considered practicing his drunk aim again with the knife in his boot, but his dragon was really the one who would have found _that_ funny, his currently indisposed dragon.

Also, contrary to popular belief, feeding, housing, and paying servants was not cheap.

"You two," he directed at the healer and governess, those fools who were quiet as mice and shaking in their poorly-made boots, "Clean up the rest of the mess."

"_Now_."

The healer Wilkinsson had seen some strange things in his long career, but working for Lord Morzan was his official low point. True to his practice, he scooped up the silent, half-conscious toddler from the blood-slicked white marble. The Lord watched calmly from his armchair, firelight and the drunken flush on his face making the black-haired man appear like a Devil. The governess would likely need a sleeping potion, or several strong drinks after this was over, and Wilkinsson was vaguely aware of the steady _drip-drip-drip_ of blood—that small body had a _lot_ of blood, and the Lord Morzan stared at the healer and his own son for the longest time.

"If you let him die, I will make you see _hell_ before you beg for the end."

Wilkinsson had no choice but to leave the poor governess to her own devices in favor of saving the bleeding boy in his arms. Those unnatural eyes could have burned holes in his own back as he, too, exited.

Unsteady on his feet, Morzan slunk off to his dark bedroom alone, a bitter taste in his mouth.

Selena did not find out until morning.


	4. Play To Lose, Because They Can't All Win

Author's Note: And here, all the chapters get shorter. Reviews are still much appreciated! I experimented with a piece of mainly dialogue here. I hope it worked okay.

IV. Play To Lose, Because They Can't All Win

"You are not my wife, Selena. You are my _servant_, although a glorified one in your pearls and silk."

"I am not your possession, Morzan. I am a woman, a _human_. You couldn't say the same for yourself."

"True, I am not so _weak_. I could hear you. That man, he will wish for death; he will curse your name. We are bound together, but you cannot hurt me."

She waited. She wished she could hurt him.

He laughed in her face.

"I cannot tell you more, where I plan to go, Selena. It's as much for your own good as mine."

"You've trusted me with much more, some nights. And you've freed me, Brom. I'm free, and I will fight, and—"

"Does he know about...?"

"What does that have to do with—"

"_Does he_?"

"He—"

"Then stay out of it, Selena, if only for the sake of our child."

"...I will leave him in Carvahall."

"Your hometown."

"But with my brother, and his wife."

"You will not be there with him?"

"Come to the castle. I have some...unfinished business."

"I see."

Brom never forgot the feral look in his lover's eyes. He had never seen the Black Hand in all her terrifying glory until then. Had he not known who the father was, he would have pitied the child.

"Murtagh, stand up straight."

"Yes, lady Mother."

"And smile, or something. Why can't you be normal? You have no right being miserable, young and naïve as you are..."

"I am sorry, I don't know, lady Mother."

"Why are you talking to my son that way, Selena? _You _have no right to do so."

"You threw a damn _sword_ at him—don't even start!"

"You also have no right to give your _master_ orders, Selena, dear."

"You are the one who even got all this in the first—!"

"And I love him, invest in him—!"

Murtagh hobbled away as fast as he could, crutch ticking noisily on the stone floor as he escaped the scene...

His governess was mystified by the sight of his books and toys all smashed on the floor, beaten with the hardwood crutch. Nobody noted the little wreaker of such destruction convulsing noiselessly in the bathroom as his wounded back spasmed. It was much too commonplace for anyone to care much.

"You've been sleeping with the egg-thief all along, haven't you?"

"I'm not your wife. I am merely a servant, just like you said."

"I spoke in anger. I was...lost. Why did you prefer _him_, lowly Brom, whose dragon died?"

"He understood. You—"

"A pity that I even considered making you my wife in true vows when I return. We are both fools, it seems, and I was a fool to ever love you. Does Murtagh, do all those nights really mean nothing to you?"

"I—"

"Farewell, Selena."

Tears actually streamed down the woman's face as her lover mounted his mad red dragon. Morzan's own smile was grim. He would have laughed again, winning her with flowery clichés if none of them were true. Instead, he burned up inside once more.

In the days that followed, Selena disappeared.

Murtagh, however, waited in his father's castle alone, dreading Morzan's return; wishing for his mother to arrive again. He had grown a bit stronger, and although his steps were short and faltering, and he still felt great pain most of the time, he had gotten rid of his crutch. Maybe then his mother would love him after all.


	5. Killing A God

Author's Note: No spoilers, but I'll miss him greatly. Lol.

V. Killing A God

Morzan wore shining armor. In red fires he looked like a demon-god. Morzan was beautiful, powerful, and clever.

Brom was not beautiful. Neither was he nearly as powerful as he had once been. But there was nothing beautiful any more, not since Saphira.

Brom _was_ clever enough, but he had something to fight for once more.

Selena and their unborn child.

The fall of the Empire.

Most importantly, the fall of Morzan.

He never again took his few gifts for granted. Brom was turning into a bitter old man, while Morzan was still young and arrogant and ruthless.

Brom was also ruthless.

The two of them stood, old friends side-by-side; watched as Morzan's maddened, wounded, nameless dragon committed suicide. The great ruby beast that Saphira had once loved tore himself open with his own white fangs and claws.

Morzan heaved a sigh, a smile forming on his lips as he looked sidelong at the younger (older) man; as if he were just relieved of a heavy burden. Brom stood to his left and watched the proud profile, the single blue eye turned towards him (but too pale to be Saphira's eye; it was the eye of her killer).

Morzan was still and calm when Brom slid Zar'roc out of its sheath at the taller man's hip and plunged the glistening blood-red point into his unprotected side, under the arm.

And then Morzan fell to his knees. He unsheathed the blade again, this time, from his own flesh. Planted it into the red earth.

Leaned on it, looking up at the ruined man that had been the Blue Rider.

Frantically, Brom cast around for his lost sword; a dagger, anything to finish this. He felt like a little child again, but Morzan, his sworn enemy, merely continued to watch him calmly, out of those loathsome eyes.

"Leave it," he told the panicked man softly, "I am already dying."

Brom tried to tug Zar'roc from the earth and his grasp, but his (withering) hands trembled too much.

"This is for Saphira," he growled, like a kicked puppy in a corner. He had always imagined a quick, clean death, a great victory, inner peace at last.

Morzan merely nodded, slowly, eyes flickering closed for a second as his blood poured down the side of his dimmed armor.

"This is also for Selena," Brom continued, childishly. He needed to tell Morzan this, make the murderer feel a fraction of the pain Brom had felt.

"She is carrying my son. She loves _me_ more than she ever loved _you_."

Morzan's chuckle turned to a gurgle of blood; his body was visibly slumping, although the grip on Zar'roc remained viselike.

"You'll never grow up, will you, Brom?" he rasped, widening his bloodstained smile. "She loved me, she betrayed me. As I, too, loved her."

"You're lying."

Morzan merely shook his head, dark hair swinging to and fro. In the pause, Brom watched the man's bowed form, and his face felt numb. Neither of them had ever dreamed that it would end like this.

Brom did not know what to say.

Several awkward moments crawled by.

"Selena probably told you that I, too, have a son," Morzan finally broke the standoff, and there was a gleam of something like pride in those mismatched eyes, like the day he introduced Brom and Saphira to his dragon, like the day they first flew together.

Brom nodded. He already knew. He had never actually seen the boy, but he hated him all the same.

Morzan gave another pained laugh, but his laughs always sounded like that. It was an almost friendly, mocking sound.

"I named him Murtagh, and he is mine. He looks just like me, but with a scar on his back—I marked him myself. He will...he will see your end."

"I don't believe that, Morzan," Brom spat, and it was almost like they were talking trash before a sparring match back in Ellesmera, again.

"Watch me—I will be better off without you."

His mismatched eyes slid closed for the last time, and his breath escaped in a skeptical noise, hand finally slipping from the hilt of the crimson sword.

_You should have listened to me more often, Brom..._

Finally, the ex-Dragon Rider wrenched the blade from the earth and plunged it into the throat of the corpse, once more for spite, or rage, or whatever.

...Then why was _he_ howling at the sight of Morzan's blood, splashed on his boots and trousers and hands?

That was how it felt: to kill a friend, a brother, a _god_.

It was eternal damnation.


	6. Not

Author's Note: Wow, I skipped a lot of material, and I'm a little leery of posting this right away, but for many reasons it appeals to what I call my aesthetics to do so. Tell me what you think! By the way, I like to think of Arya's voice as sounding like the lady speaking in "Flight 643" by Tiësto.

VI. Not

There was, was nothing left.

The Elf, Arya watched him with her sharp forest-green eyes. Brom felt himself wither away, an old man. Just an old man. He did not beg for sympathy (because what did words mean any more?), and she was anything but sympathetic, with her hard stare and her clipped words.

But neither was she cruel.

Because, for one beautiful moment, Brom let himself imagine that he would return to that dark castle in the Spine to Selena, freed from all that bound her. She would glimmer in the night and fall like a white rose into his rough arms; they would journey together to the town where she was born, to be married, reclaim their son, live happily.

And maybe, _maybe_, the blue egg that he had taken from Morzan would hatch and he would have...

When he reached that familiar plateau in the Spine, the castle was deserted. None of the servants had wished to remain in that dark place. Spies from the Varden reached him in Tierm, while he tried to drink away his dream (much like Morzan before him).

Selena's body had been laid to rest alongside Morzan's in the Inner Hallows of the City of Sorrow. The child of that pair was now property of the palace, of the King. Brom had no desire to seek out _that_ remaining legacy of Selena.

Arya had found him. It was she who spread rumor of his sudden death. For that, at least, he was grateful. She made him disappear to Ellesmera; she waited until he finished his confessions to Oromis and all the others he held dear.

And her eyes put chills down his spine.

"Go to Carvahall," she told him, unsmiling, like an eagle over a trembling rabbit.

"Give me the egg, and go to your son."

Brom did not answer. He clutched to blue egg to his chest, unwilling to separate from his last shred of hope, the last thing he could gain back. Arya was the winter chill on his dead frame; he knew she had the strength to take the egg by force if she chose to do so; he was just a dried leaf blown in the wind.

"You have already done all you can do, Brom. Do not turn your back on your own son. The egg has not chosen you, worthy as you are."

It was hard enough to speak to Oromis. He could not bring himself to say a word to Arya, but something in her face softened.

"Go to your son in Carvahall," she repeated, her hand extended. "You are dead to the rest of the world, and your work is over...for now."

Slowly, and so, so numbly, the old man extended his own two hands, wrinkled and brown and reflected on the cool sapphire surface of the dragon egg. He handed over the egg. He gave up the precious little remains of the life he once knew to the daughter of the Queen.

Arya rode with him to the western edge of the great forest and her dark horse, clothes, and hair blended into the gloom under the ancient boughs in the dying light. She gazed into the one-time Dragon Rider's blue eyes for the last time and raised one of her graceful hands, a sad smile curving her sculpted lips.

"Farewell, Brom. May you find happiness."

Raising his own hand in return, Brom was already riding away on his chestnut horse. He did not turn.

"Farewell, Arya. I wish you the best of luck."

Arya did not need to know of the tears in his eyes, or the pain driven deep into his heart.

That pain only began to fade when Brom the Storyteller held baby Eragon for the first time, as the local women chattered and Garrow's toddler, Roran, distracted Marian with an almighty ruckus.

Eragon had Selena's brown eyes; they recognized him, the old man, his father.

Maybe this life was worth the cost.

Just maybe.


	7. Dark Side of the Moon

Author's Note: And here it is, the grand finale of this story! I hope you enjoy it, and if not, tell me why! All this angst has been a real blast, I tell you. I may come back and fix this up when I have more time, but for now...

VII. Dark Side of the Moon

When he gasps for air and everything hurts like hell, Brom is not dead.

He feels infection and disease and damage worming deep through his ribs, and there is cold air sparkling on his old, scrawny, hairy chest.

Somebody has removed his robe; somebody's hands poke and prod at the source of all the decay, at the oozing wound in his side.

The old man squirms.

_Saphira?_ He calls out with his hungry, lonely mind. The dragon nearby is not _his_ Saphira. She is more concerned with an unconscious boy beside her.

"Selena?" he croaks out, but the sound is slurred and incoherent, little more than useless. The prodding hands stop their movements suddenly, as if in recognition, but the mind is alien: a sleek, streamlined, impenetrable silver shield. Trying to break into that mind is like a sword skating off Morzan's shining armor.

There is no weakness.

And so Brom curses everything because _of course_ he is not dead yet; _of course_ he could not have a clean break from this world. There is a sick, sloppy symmetry in everyone and everything—in Selena, in Saphira, and now he is going to die slowly, like Morzan did before him.

Brom is an old man, and he wonders if he is not yet senile.

He has only just remembered Eragon, his son, his son.

Eragon is still alive, and his (hidden, coward) father is going to die, most definitely.

He curses again and opens his unfocused eyes.

"...Morzan?" he groans, and he wants to laugh and cry and kill the boy who has apparently been treating him. He is old, he is aching; he killed Morzan and suffered for it, and Morzan himself is pale and young, expressionless. His raven-black hair has grown, his head tilted to one side so that the left eye, the blue eye, is hidden by shaggy bangs.

"You're dead," Brom protests to that emotionless face, and pale young Morzan's visible black eye narrows, his mouth tightens.

"You must be mistaken, old man," he answers coldly, with Morzan's low voice.

Brom wants Eragon to wake up. His son is in grave danger. Why hasn't Morzan killed the dragon, his son's dragon, yet? The muzzled sapphire creature is watching closely, chained and helpless.

Brom bites back a cry when Morzan presses a soapy rag to his wound, but through his watering eyes, he can see the rest of the boy's face as his dark hair shifts aside.

The left eye is black, too.

Blindly, Brom fastens his clawlike hand around the stranger's wrist. He notices other differences—the Morzan-boy is somewhat smaller, slighter than the late Red Rider had been; his hair too long; too quiet, too cautious in his movements. His killer's eyes shift about frequently, like those of a wild animal: always vigilant for predators; always waiting for prey.

Brom somehow feels a bit sad, in addition to his confusion and frustration and that terrible sense of loss that has flared up so suddenly.

"I knew your parents," the old man rasps, every word a great struggle. He sees fear in the boy's eyes, and knows, knows—

—at least his own son is not yet so damaged. Would that this cancer, this other child of Selena (the dark side of the Moon) had died...

"Who are you?" the boy demands sharply. Brom's eyes wander briefly to the dagger in his high boot. Even if the monster's son masked it well, Brom recognizes his terrible, crushing, all-encompassing longing. He feels it, too.

"Your mother...was a very close friend of mine," he half-lies. He does not want to think about Morzan any more than he has to.

"Tell me more. I can kill you right here, and nobody will be the wiser," Morzan's son grinds out, and this is no empty threat. He is a coiled viper, a cornered wolf, a beaten dog.

Brom can't help but chuckle at the irony.

"Not yet," he wheezes heavily, "I will die soon enough, but I still have a last wish to carry out."

The younger man follows his bleary gaze to Eragon's prone form, and he gives a curt nod.

"I understand."

Morzan would not have shown that mercy, cold and impersonal as it was, and Brom remembers something.

"Your father told me you have a scar on your back, do you not?" It hurts to talk, but he needs to know, if only for the sake of completing his mission properly. He is certain he has never seen that level of hate and fear in even Morzan's eyes, as the Red Rider's son shifts his sword belt, pulls up his tunic, and turns.

Brom can only see about half of the raised pink-and-silver scar on the pale skin of his lower back. Then Murtagh Morzansson drops the hem of his shirt again, turns back to the man that was his mother's lover. He now looks merely ashamed.

"You will never tell anyone of this, old man," he states flatly, like a simple fact, even as he schools his face back to careful neutrality.

"No," Brom agrees, wanting to writhe and scream; wanting to appear strong and controlled before his mortal enemy's reincarnation (even though they are little alike, are they?).

"No, you mean nothing to me, Murtagh, son of Morzan."

The boy's mask fails again, for a second, and he is disappointed, struggling.

"Then will you tell me anything of my mother?" he asks, and Morzan's voice is fraught with that longing again. Brom has never heard Morzan sound like a child, before, even when he _was_ a child.

"No," Brom says again, with a heavy heart, but this one is not his; he is beyond saving.

"It does not concern you, just as...as your memories of Selena do not concern me."

"You are going to die, soon," Murtagh says softly, his head bowed, eyes glistening with unshed tears, but wisely leaves the topic of his mother.

Brom feels darkness closing in as the son of his enemy bandages his wound—he cannot let go until he has spoken with Eragon.

"Your father was right," he groans, delirious with pain.

"How so?" Murtagh snaps back, sharp and scared, but Brom sees no need to answer. He needs no part in the life of Selena's other son.

As his consciousness fades out , he hears the steady _thunk, thunk_ of a long hand-and-a-half sword striking a nearby tree.

It is oddly soothing.


	8. The Son of an Unexpected Father

Author's Note: _me gusta_ the Tron: Legacy. Really, really.

I won't say it was perfect, and the ending had me wanting to throw something for an agonizing while, but Daft Punk, cool motorcycles, and pretty lights cover a multitude of sins. Jeff Bridges must have had a LOT of fun acting in that movie.

And I couldn't resist this bit of stupidity after all the gloom and doom I've just posted. Cheers!

Murtagh's breathing was hard and fast, like a cornered wolf as he faced Eragon, anguish written on his face.

"You have a right to know, Eragon," he said in a tortured voice, "I am...I am the son of Flynn."

Shock ran through Eragon and Saphira's bond, and Eragon's hand flew to Zar'roc reflexively.

_The son of Flynn!_ Saphira repeated sharply, colored with disbelief.

_What could he want with us?_

But Murtagh tore wildly at his dark hair and cloak, and the wig fell away to reveal a head of sandy, spiky locks; underneath his rough clothes he wore a sleek black suit of some material Eragon had never seen before, glowing softly with strips of bluish light placed here and there.

On his back was a round disc of that same gentle shining material.

"You're a _User_!" Eragon shouted at last, shrinking back from his erstwhile friend as Saphira crashed through the trees, fangs bared and tail raised in threat.

_Be careful, Eragon. He might try to reprogram us_.

Looking back at _that_ adventure, Sam Flynn found he did not mind so much the dragon-program's ire. He'd always preferred his puppy and his Ducati, anyways.

THE END


End file.
